Month: December 2017

Yesterday, I talked about books that surprised me in 2017, because they were better than I expected them to be. Today, I want to talk about books that I was disappointed with, not necessarily because they were bad, but because they weren’t as good as I expected them to be.

The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell

I was so intrigued by this book, the cover looked great and I had heard so many amazing things, that I was simply expecting more. I thought this was a good book, but some of the big reveals felt forced and the ending wasn’t my favorite. Actually, I’m not excited to continue with this series, I gave it 4 stars but I think I was generous.

The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

I saw the ending coming since the beginning of the book, which wasn’t good, and I hated the ending, which was even worse. I ended up feeling like the three books had been for nothing, like I got no pay off after reading the entire series. I gave this book 3,5 stars and I think I may have been a bit generous.

A Courts of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

I really liked this book , I gave it 4,3 stars, but after the amazingness that was book 2 in the series, I was expecting so much more out of the ‘final’ instalment in every sense. Also, there’s some bisexual representation and I feel like it wasn’t handled that well, which frustrated me a lot.

The Melody of You and Me by M. Hollis

I had really high hopes for this book bacause I had heard nothing but good things. I recognize that this book does a god job with representation, it has a pansexual main carácter and a Lesbian filipino love interest, BUT the writing is terrible and I could get pass that. I gave it 2,8 stars at the end.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

So many people say that Animal Farm is their favorite book and that George Orwell is a genius for writing it, so I had huge expectations for this book and I was completely disappointed. I know this book is a clever allegory, but I found reading it to be tedious and I actually thought this was boring. The only part I really liked was the ending. I gave it 3,2 stars.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I have seen this book around a lot, but i didn’t know that much about it before reading it, but after seeing this everywhere I was expecting it to be amazing. At the end, I hate the way this was written, aspects like the fact that it’s told in vignettes, the lack of punctuation, and the lack of real plot confused me and made me not enjoy reading this at all. I gave it 3,4 stars.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

I loved the first book in this series and I was expeting to love this one as much, but that did not happen. I still enjoyed it, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. I gave it 3,8 stars.

Tell me in the comments, what books were disappointing in 2007? I would love to know!

I wanted to talk about some of the books that surprised me in 2017, because I didn’t know that much about them and ended up loving them or because I thought I wasn’t gonna like them and at the end I did. These books are books that I read in 2017 but they didn’t necesarily were released in 2017.

If the Dress Fits by Carla de Guzman

I was not expecting to love this as much as I did, I had never read anything by this author and I had never read a book set in the Philippines, which made this even more surprising because I was discovering things about the culture that were new to me. There were 2 things I really loved about this: 1) The main character, Martha, is plus sized and she has a positive relationship with her weight and 2) There’s fake dating and the best friends to lovers trope in this story, which are my favorites. I want to re-read this soon!

How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

This book suprised me because I recieved an ARC and when I read it not a lot of people had written reviews, so I didn’t know that much about it and that made me uncertain about reading it. Nonetheless, I found that this book has amazing representation, the main character Grace is bisexual and the love interest Eva is a biracial lesbian girl. Also, the romance in this book is great, Grace and Eva are so cute! and the story of Grace and her mom is raw and complicated and told with so much honesty.

Future Leaders of Nowhere by Emily O’Beirne

I received an ARC of this and I had never heard about it or about the author and that’s why this book was such a big surprise. The premise sounded interesting and that’s why I read it, but I was still really amazed at how good this book was. I really loved a lot of things about this, but mainly: 1) There’s amazing representation: one of the main characters is bisexual and the other is Indian-Australian and a lesbian, and 2) The setting and premise are amazing, it’s a mix between a summer camp and a Model UN.

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Maas

This book was suprising because I thought I wasn’t gonna like it, so many of the main characters weren’t in it and Chaol is not my favorite so I was a bit worried. BUT I really liked the new characters. I loved the stoyline and the writing in this book.

Dating-ish by Penny Reid

I think this is the fifth book in a series and I have liked all the other books, but the synopsis of this was not the best, so that made me doubt if I wanted to read this or not. Funny thing, I read it and it’s my favorite book of the series, which was totally surprising to me. I really liked the main characters and I really liked the relationship between them.

Tell me in the comments, what books surprised you in 2007? I would love to know!

Read 52 books:

I have read more than 52 book for the last 5 years, so I’m pretty sure my goal could be higher, but a lot of changes are coming to my life in 2018 and I’m not sure about anything. That’s why I decided to set 52 as my goal, so I don’t have to stress about not completing it.

Blog consistently:

I set this goal all the time, at the beginning of the year, in the middle of the year or at the end of the year. I never end up accomplishing this goal and it frustrates me. A lot of things get in the way, but I want to be able to manage everything else and bloggging, because I love to blog about books and I want to keep doing it.

Interact more with the bookish community:

I want to comment more on other blogs and talk to other bloggers about the content that they are creating and also be more active on twitter. I feel like my interaction with the bookish community a lot of time is limited and I feel like an observer of the community and not an active participant. I want to change that.

Read more diverse books:

I also had this goal for 2017 and the first half of the year I did really good, but the second half of the year I fell off the tracks. So I want to try and read as many diverse books as I can in 2018.

Continue doing 9 Books Monday:

9 Books Monday is a feature here on Bookish Wanderess where I talk every monday about 9 books that have positive representation for a minority/marginalized group. Those 9 books are book I read and loved, books on my tbr and books releasing soon. If you want to read past post, you can do it here: 9 Books Monday

Choose the books I read more ‘carefully’:

I’m not sure carefully is the right word, but the reason I’m setting up this goal is that I only rated 2 books 5 stars in 2017. Only 2 books. Most of the books I read this year got a rating of 3 or 3.5 stars. I want to read more books that I love and not so many books that are just OK. I’m not sure how to accomplish this goal yet, but I’m gonna try.

Read more fantasy:

Fantasy is my favorite genre and this year I didn’t read that many fantasy books, but the few I read were some of my favorite books of the year. That’s why I want to go back to reading fantasy books in 2018.

Tell me some of your 2018 bookish resolutions in the comments, I would love to know!

I have written this post a couple times and then I don’t actually come back to blogging. The last few months have not been the best and I’m a bit unsure about posting this because I feel like I’m complaning and that’s not what I want to do. Nontheless, I do want to share what has happened in my life during this time with whoever is still reading my blog and that’s why I’m posting this. This is going to be a really personal update, because I have been gone entirely do to personal reasons.

I think in my last update we left off with the fact that I broke up with my boyfriend after two and a half years together. After that, I had the worst month, my anxiety always gets really bad when I’m in emotional distress, not only was I sad and had terrible anxiety, I got phisically sick. IT WAS LITERALLY THE WORST MONTH. But, after six months, I’m feeling better about the break up.

After that I started my internship, which I did not liked at all at the beginning, because I was not learning as much as I wanted to. I’m still not learning as much as I want to, but I have changed my attitude and I’m trying not to be disappointed and frustrated, instead I’m making the best of the situation and learning what I can. Also, my co-workers are great, so that’s been good.

Also, during this six months, I was trying to finish my thesis which was a continous source of anxiety in my life for the last year. BUT NOW IS OVER!!! This is a big reason I’m gonna start blogging again, I finished my thesis and I defended it and the jury approved it! I’M DONE WITH MY THESIS …I REPEAT, I’M DONE WITH MY THESIS!

Internship + thesis + breakup have made this last six months stressful and sad. Also, my anxiety got to uncontrollable levels during this time.Those are the reasons I have not been blogging and I actually stopped reading as well for a long time. BUT as I said, I’m feeling better and not everything has been bad, I have been hanging out with my friends a lot, which I love to do, and I met this guy who is great. Also, I finished my thesis, which is fantastic, and things at work have been looking up. My anxiety is better. AND I have been wanting to blog again after months of not having any desire to do it. So here I am.

In the next weeks, I will be posting my favorite books of the year, most disappointing books, a wrap up, a review. There’s a lot coming and I’m excited to be back. Let me links to your favorite posts of the last few months (that you or other people wrote) I would love to read them!

About

Hi! I'm Sofia, I'm 23 and I'm from Colombia.

I often get lost wandering through the pages of books and the scenes in movies and tv shows. I blog mainly about books, but from time to time you will find posts about other things I love. I hope you have fun!